Moon Walk Anniversary 
In a speech to Congress on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy outlined his Apollo program, a plan to send an American to the Moon by the end of the decade. The program succeeded on July 20, 1969. Apollo 11 was the triumph of an enormous infrastructure, requiring the cooperation of many thousands of dedicated individuals.



From the beginning...
On Jan. 27, 1967, a fire swept through the Command Module (CM) during a preflight test for Apollo 1, which was scheduled to be the first manned Apollo mission. Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives. 
The Apollo 7 mission (Oct. 11–22, 1968), commanded by Walter M. Schirra, was a confidence builder. The Apollo hardware and all mission operations worked without any significant problems, andt he engine that would place Apollo in and out of lunar orbit made eight nearly perfect firings. 
The Apollo 8 mission (Dec. 21-27, 1968) proved the ability to navigate to and from the Moon. The astronauts were the first human beings to venture beyond low-Earth orbit. Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit on the morning of December 24, and for the next 20 hours, the astronauts circled the Moon. 
 


Mission Accomplished
Apollo 11 (Jul. 16-24, 1969) saw the achievement of Kennedy’s goal. At 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on July 20, Neil Armstrong piloted his LM to a touchdown on the Moon. Six hours later, he took “one giant leap for mankind.” He and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin spent two-and-a-half hours on the Moon’s surface. They left behind scientific instruments, an American flag, and a plaque bearing the inscription: “Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon The Moon. July 1969 A.D. We Came In Peace For All Mankind.”
Apollo 12 (Nov. 14-24, 1969) marked the second lunar landing. Astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr. and Alan Bean took two Moon walks, collecting rocks and setting up experiments that measured the Moon’s seismicity, solar wind flux, and magnetic field. 



Mission Complete
Apollo 17 (Dec. 7-19, 1972) was the final mission in the program. Jack Schmitt and Eugene Cernan collected 108.86 kilograms of rocks during three Moon walks. The crew left behind a plaque attached to their lander, which read: “Here Man completed his first exploration of the Moon, December 1972 A.D. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind.” 
(Text for this article taken from https://history.nasa.gov/ap11-35ann/index.htm)